The first phase of a ceasefire agreement in Gaza came to an end on Saturday, with Hamas reaffirming its willingness to move forward with the “remaining stages” of the agreement.
The Palestinian militant organisation stated, “We affirm our keenness to complete the remaining stages of the ceasefire agreement, leading to a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire, full withdrawal of the occupation forces from the Gaza Strip, reconstruction, and lifting the siege,” alluding to the conditions of the agreement that mediators had previously laid out.
A letter to the Arab League summit on Gaza scheduled for Tuesday included Hamas’s remarks.
The next stage of the Israel-Hamas truce, which aims to establish a permanent ceasefire, has not yet produced a definitive agreement, even though the first phase is scheduled to end on Saturday.
Following more than 15 months of war that began with Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the deadliest in the nation’s history, the truce went into effect on January 19.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dispatched a group to Cairo, and mediator Egypt said that delegations from Israel, along with those from the United States and Qatar, had arrived for “intensive talks” on the second phase.
Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for Hamas, stated that the organisation had rejected “the extension of the first phase in the formulation proposed by the occupation (Israel)” due to the lack of unanimity by Saturday.
He urged mediators to compel the occupation to adhere to the agreement in its different phases.
Though it “categorically” rejected “the attempt to impose any non-Palestinian projects or forms of administration or the presence of any foreign forces on any territory of the Gaza Strip,” Hamas was “fully prepared to deal with any option that is agreed upon by the Palestinians” about a post-war Gaza.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, proposed that the United States “take over” Gaza and relocate the Palestinians to another location. The Palestinians, together with neighbouring Egypt and Jordan, have rejected this proposal.
In January, former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who presently holds some administrative authority in the occupied West Bank, stated that the Palestinian Authority should have sovereignty over Gaza.
According to Blinken, numerous nations have offered to provide police and military to post-war Gaza.
